1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of computing graphics and, more particularly, to a system and method for managing context switching in a graphics accelerator.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern operating systems are configured to handle the execution of multiple processes in a time-sharing fashion. Processes may require the services of a graphics accelerator. The processes send (or induce the transfer of) graphics commands to the graphics accelerator. The processing behavior exhibited by the graphics accelerator in response to a graphics command X(k) may depend previous commands X(k−n), n>0. In other words, the response of the graphics accelerator to graphics command X(k) depends on the state of the accelerator which has been established by a number of previous commands X(k−n). Thus, when an operating system switches from execution of a first process to a second process, the state of the first process needs to be saved and the state of the second process needs to be loaded into a set of registers, tables, memories of the graphics accelerator. The bandwidth required to transfer state information from the graphics accelerator to a host computer (executing the operating system) and vice versa may be nontrivial in so far as modern graphics computing requires a significant amount of state information. Thus, there exists a need for a system and method capable of easing the burden of state information transfer between host computers and graphics accelerators.